Meet the lovable 10%

Tina KorbePosted at 5:25 pm on October 28, 2011

Boaz Reigstad is a little boy with eager eyes and a sunshiny smile who turns six this Sunday. It’s hard to see a picture of him and not smile a bit yourself. After just the briefest glimpse of the beaming child, “lovable” leaps to mind to describe him.

Reigstad also happens to have Down Syndrome. That, too, is visible in his picture — but it takes a back seat to the joy and warmth of his expression. Sadly, the apparently cheerful child is the exception to a startling rule: About 90 percent of pregnant mothers who learn their babies have Down Syndrome choose to abort. As The Blaze puts it, “That means [just] 10 percent of children are brought to term after the mother learns of the condition.”

Reigstad, then, is part of “the lovable 10 percent.”

With the help of his father, the five-year-old has captured the attention of thousands of people on Facebook, who have “liked” a picture of the little boy holding a sign that reads:

I may not be perfect, but I’m happy. I am God’s handiwork and I bear his image. I am blessed. I am the 10% of children born with Down Syndrome who survived Roe v. Wade.

Reigstad’s father, Andy, told LifeSiteNews that he took and posted the picture “to let people know that though our son is not perfect (nor are any of us), he is happy and his life is worth living.”

“We had hoped that this photo might be a small part of the tide that is turning against abortion. We wanted to speak up for those who can’t speak up for themselves.”

It’s a compelling contrast to the complaints of “the 99 percent” occupying Wall Street and other cities throughout the country. While the two “protests” — one an apologetic for the right to life, the other a convoluted cry to end crony capitalism through the redistribution of wealth — might not seem, at first glance, to pertain to one another, they matter to one another immensely, regardless of whether the OWS-ers recognize it. For, just as life is a fundamental right, so, too, is it a fundamental gift, one for which, ultimately, we can take no responsibility. While we can cooperate in bringing it about and while we most assuredly (and sadly!) can end it, we cannot, try as we might, create it out of nothing. From that simple fact alone, the seemingly proper posture from which to proceed in life is one of humility — just the opposite of the entitlement mentality we see rampant today. Ironic that so many of the same people who think government should provide its people all things out of nothing often fail to protect and defend the one gift that does arise relatively freely.